Every third child in the world is bullied by their peers either in real life or online. This is according to official UNESCO data. With every year and the development of technology, bullying is increasingly moving online, which is quite difficult for parents to control.

In this material, we will analyze what cyberbullying is, its main signs, and how to protect your child from it and save from chances to happen as much as possible. This includes talking about cybersecurity, limiting screen time and limiting app time, and other efficient methods.

What is cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying is harassment and intimidation on the Internet, including social networks, games, and other digital media. With cyberbullying, the aggressor tries to bring the child to emotions using a repetitive cycle of abuse and other methods. It aims to evoke feelings of anger, fear, or even shame in the child. Most often, bully uses the following methods:

• Dissemination of deliberately false information about a person;
• Use and distribution of his photographs, possibly obscene ones;
• Offensive messages;
• Threats;
• Impersonating this person, sending compromising messages to other persons on his behalf.

Cyberbullying is essentially very similar to real-life bullying, while methods are the only difference. Online bullying has a digital footprint – messages and other evidence that can be used to protect children, stop bullying and even take legal action.

Prevention of cyberbullying - how to safe kids

Now it’s practically impossible to thoroughly monitor a child and completely protect him from the Internet. For this reason, you need to educate the kid in digital literacy and hygiene, as well as teach him social network communication skills. This will make using the Internet not only interesting and informative but will as well provide the child with comfort and safety. For these purposes, there are a lot of lectures, video tutorials, and books.

Another way to achieve digital security is a parent tracker that allows you to monitor kids. These are various programs that make it possible to provide app time limits, access to certain applications and sites, and also reduce the time spent on the network. For example, the monitoring app Parental control Kroha allows you to remotely determine the location of the child, and limit time on the network, as well as the applications and sites that he uses.

At the same time, parents should build relationships in such a way that the child doesn’t perceive the kids mode as restrictions. The child should perceive such time control and kid guard as care and attention, and not distrust of him. At the same time the kid must be aware of possible dangers in order to be able to resist them and, if necessary, seek help.

How to determine if a child is being cyberbullied

Recognizing online bullying is not an easy task. Often the guardian parent finds out when it's too late. At the moment when the mental state of the child is already disturbed due to constant feelings of resentment and lack of security. But there are a number of factors that can help parents identify the problem in time.

Emotional condition

This includes changes in an emotional state, including hyper-emotionality, and vice versa. Also, the child's mood may deteriorate immediately after he sits on the Internet. He can withdraw into himself, more often be alone and ignore his parents. In this case, it’s worth conducting kid monitoring and paying attention to the amount of time that the child spends online - there is a possibility that he spends all his time and energy being subjected to Internet bullying.

Habits and looks

A child may be bullied because of excess weight, some features of appearance, and many other reasons. For example, if the reason is weight, the child may significantly change their eating habits, if the style of clothing is the cause, they may try to change their appearance. Also, a child may deliberately reduce the social circle, because it’s difficult for him to remain the same, being bullied on the Internet.

Sleeping mode

If a child has bad thoughts, it may be difficult for him to fall asleep. Also, there are often cases when children wake up in the middle of the night from nightmares or the opposite they begin to sleep much more. This is also a kind of way to escape from danger and traumatic circumstances.

Self-destructive behavior

This is already a very complex issue that parents cannot deal with without the help of a specialist. The child harms himself and his health, thus trying to get away from the problem. This includes alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, self-harm, and even suicide attempts.

How to help your child cope with online bullying?

Unfortunately, not every child shares their problems with their parents, including bullying on the Internet. In most cases, the victim continues to endure harassment, hoping that the aggressor will soon get bored or find another victim to persecute.

If you didn’t install the child filter and screen limit on time and found out that your child is being cyberbullied, we recommend taking the following actions:

• Heart-to-heart talk. Talk to your child, show that you understand him and that you can be trusted. Explain what cyberbullying is, the way it works, why it happens and how to deal with it.
• Work on self-esteem. Most often, children who are bullied have fairly low self-esteem. Contribute to the child’s development of adequate self-esteem and reduce dependence on the opinions of others.
• Socialization. Help your child socialize by allowing him or her to invite friends and classmates home more often.
• Relationships. Try to form a relationship with your child so that he or she can always ask you for help, talk about their experiences and any problems.

This is what you can and should do yourself. Installing a child lock is a good way to prevent a problem from occurring and create a safe kids space. If necessary, you can contact a psychologist. Sometimes only a professional can cope with a problem, who will help restore the child’s psyche after emotional trauma, develop self-esteem and build relationships with peers correctly.